My mysteries always have a victim. And it’s Isabel Long’s mission to find out what really happened to that person.

Isabel, a longtime journalist turned P.I., focuses on solving cold cases in the fictional hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. So, I try to give her cases that will challenge her — and readers of the series. 

Since the setting is a rural area, likewise the characters I create fit right in. Most are locals whose families have lived there at least a couple of generations although there are newcomers, including Isabel who moved with her family to the small town of Conwell, population 1,000, from Boston.

After living in small rural towns for many years, I feel I have done enough people watching to create authentic characters although I should be clear none are based on real people. As I’ve shared before, my motto is: I take what I know and have my way with it.

Currently, I am completing the eighth in the series. In all but one, which was the case of a missing person, the victims are long deceased. Their deaths were ruled accidents, presumed dead or a suicide, but a person closest to them doesn’t believe that’s what happened. Actually, let me back up and say that no. eight has an outright murder that happened 43 years ago. 

But for this post, I am going to focus on the victims from the first three books in the series, since they were recently republished by Bloodhound Books.

In the first, Chasing the Case, a woman disappeared 28 years earlier. Adela Collins walked home from her family’s general store and was never seen again. It was also Isabel’s first big story as a rookie reporter. As she finds out when she pursues this case, Adela has a few secrets.

In the second, Redneck’s Revenge, Chet Waters, a junkyard owner supposedly died in a fire because he was too drunk to get out. But his daughter, Annette Waters, who now owns that junkyard, doesn’t believe it. Chet might have been an SOB, but Annette, believes he deserves better.

And in Checking the Traps, the victim is a highway worker by day and a poet by night. The official ruling was that Cary Moore jumped from a bridge known for suicides. For years, his half-brother Gary has been trying to get someone to look into it, and now that Isabel has solved two cases, he turns to her for help.

In each book, I try to give readers a portrait of each victim through the words of the people Isabel Long interviews. You can check out her handiwork in the first three books in the series: Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps. Thank you if you do.